Xena: Goddess
by Thor2000
Summary: After Xena delivers a mystic relic to a cursed cemetery, Gabrielle is possessed by the spirit of a priestess wanting to gain revenge on the gods.
1. Default Chapter

The moon was straight up as Xena and Gabrielle arrived in Cynthus, a tiny farming community built around the location of one of Apollo's forgotten temples. From the look of the land, it was hard to believe that the god of light and prophecy protected this town. The temple was partially hidden and obscured within the high-reaching foliage and weeds grown up over centuries. The local cemetery appeared derelict, abandoned and more akin to Hades. Old tombstones of forgotten ancestors were crooked and fallen over. Old dead trees dotted the land like demonic creatures reaching to the heavens, and at night, it was hard to tell where the horizon and the dark night began or ended. The town had once lived in prosperity, but now it was under the blight of a curse. Argo neighed nervously as they crossed in front of the open gates of the old cemetery. Across from the temple, Gabrielle sat upon a partially shattered wood bench and removed her boot for the annoying stone that she had picked up in it. Her long blonde locks swayed over her left shoulder as she turned her head up to look upon the neglected tombstones.

"Watch Argo." Xena slipped off her proud and noble steed and stared blankly toward her. "Don't let him wander." This was a mission of mercy to her.

"Right!" Gabrielle grinned exuberantly in the torch fire of the partially lit courtyard and glanced to the cemetery they had passed.

"And stay out of the cemetery."

"Why?"

"Because I said so." Xena took the package they had been carrying from Corinth and silently headed to the temple without a word, her chakram barely making a noise as it rattled on her belt. With a definitive rap, she knocked once and barely waited as the tall wooden doors of the pale gray temple cracked open a few inches and accepted the Warrior Princess. Watching with limited interest, Gabrielle smirked and turned her head back to look back to the cemetery as Argo bowed his head to graze on the high weeds. Feeling a bit hungry herself, Gabrielle remembered the dried beef they had picked up in Malis and started poking through the pouches on Argo's back. She hoped Xena hadn't got it already, but Argo objected to her poking into his pouch by shying away from her.

"Don't do that." The huge Arabian snorted toward her. "Don't do that either."

Gabrielle cocked her head to the cemetery as she thought she saw the shadows moving out the corner of her eyes. The distant trees and bushes swayed as she realized a good breeze had passed through the courtyard. Distant farmhouses along the black horizon were barely noticeable. Their lanterns were like the smallest fireflies against the starless night, and religious chimes made eerie noises in the darkness. Gabrielle felt this land was more a land of the dead than Hades itself and turned back to look for the last of the rations. A distant cry in the night sounded as the wind blew through a tree trunk. It also sounded a bit human as Gabrielle looked up innocently toward the dark cemetery. Its tombstones and markers appeared as short fat ghosts squatting in high weeds staring back at her. She reached for her staff.

"Hello?" She called out and looked back for Xena.

"Help me..." The barely audible cry drifted out of the wind to her ears. Gabrielle turned round to try to tell where it was coming from. The wind picked up as Argo nervously neighed and wandered closer to the temple doors. He did not know what was scaring him, but he did know he wanted away from it.

"That's okay." She patted him and started down the lane.

"Help me..." That voice came from the cemetery. Gabrielle's head turned with alarm to that plea and realized from where it had come. Xena had said stay out of the cemetery, but she did not know someone out there needed help!

"I'm coming!" Gabrielle left Argo and charged through a broken opening in the stone and brick wall surrounding the tombstone covered field of weeds and dead grass. Rushing between the black markers, she stepped on a fallen stone marker and ran faster and faster as the dark square shapes obscured behind dead bushes whirled past her feet. The wind picked up and tossed the loose weeds around her as she looked for the person calling her. "Where are you??!"

"Help me..." The voice sounded even distant as Gabrielle tore past more crumbling statues standing opposed in white against the darkness and shattered, broken markers lying next to their foundations. Her path took her over a dried stream filled with rocks and rustling leaves and into a gathering of dead oaks reaching up over her head. The tree limbs reached up over her and darkened the sky while dried pieces of dead trees were thrown up around her and obscured her vision. Through the fluttering images impairing her vision, the attractive blonde bard saw one dark shape behind a tombstone lurch up high above her and rush upon her, completely enveloping her in a frozen cold darkness!


	2. Chapter 2

PART 2

Xena glanced over the inside of the temple as one of Apollo's priests left her, walked over to one of the others and whispered a message. It was a large chamber around a sacrificial fire with a vague corridor off to the side and few furnishings. These priests had taken a vow of poverty. She took a deep breath against her breastplate and clutched her package bound in leather within her fingers. One of the men bowing to the symbol of the sun on the wall stood up crossed himself with his hand and came up to her.

"I am Father Caber," He began with a Gaelic accent. "You have the talisman from Corinth?

"Yes," Xena grinned pleasantly as she handed over the package.

"Thank Apollo and our brothers in Corinth," Caber spoke eloquently and religiously as he unwrapped the large opaque sandstone rock imbedded with symbols and ancient writings. The light passed through the huge gem and created a rainbow of lights on the wall. "With their help, we can bring prosperity to the land and exorcise the demons from the cemetery. You told your companion to stay away from it."

"She does what I say." Xena looked around the temple and its three priests. "Why is this talisman so much more important than the others?"

"It was a gift to Apollo from Oenghus of my people in uniting the prosperity of our respective gods." Caber spoke. "Oenghus's spells have never been able to contain the evil out there so it became that much more obvious we needed power from your Greek gods more powerful than it."

"Hundreds of years ago," Caber continued as he turned and prepared a place of reverence for the stone. "The Celts took this land from your people and staked the sick and the dying and the cursed to the ground out there. They spilled blood and created dark and forbidden ceremonies long forgotten. The land has hence forever been cursed and shall remain so until the power of the two sun gods cleanse it and allows their presence to touch it once more. If you knew the sheer numbers of people the Celts sacrificed here…"

"I thought curses were permanent." Xena asked.

"They were meant to be thought so." Caber had his men gather food and provisions for Xena to take with her as repayment for her delivery. "Last month we had a young girl chase her sheep out there. The sheep died, the child became mad and killed her family to drink their blood. We had to remove their heads and burn the bodies."

"I'm not one for demons and exorcisms." Xena's delivery had turned into a tasteless ghost story as she idly smirked with a roll of her eyes, took the provisions granted her and turned to the door. "Good luck." She turned out as the priests blessed her and slowly closed their doors behind her, latching them tightly with a brief casual thud. Argo was waiting for her just outside the door as she clicked her tongue to him and pulled out a carrot for him from the provisions. He chewed at it as she looked around for Gabrielle. Her eyes panned the deserted and barren courtyard and looked reluctantly to the cemetery with its ghosts and demons. She saw no one in sight but for darkness and scant faraway lights.

"Gabrielle!" She called out with barely an effort.

"Yes!" The blonde bard popped up behind her from out of a shadow and leaned on her staff with childlike abandon and feminine flair. She grinned harmlessly and looked back at her with such sheer unbridled exuberance that Xena couldn't stand it.

"Where'd you go?"

"Call of nature." Gabrielle smirked and stepped back from Argo who neighed and bucked in her presence. Alarmed, Xena grabbed his reins and calmed him by stroking his withers, clicking her tongue in his ear and offering him another carrot. She knew he was jealous of Gabrielle, but he had never acted like this before to her knowledge.

"I set up camp out here in the trees." Gabrielle continued with a weird glimmer in her eyes. "Ready to eat?" Her eyebrows arched earnestly.

"We didn't have anything." Xena recalled.

"I caught a rabbit."

"I thought you were tired of rabbit."

"I also didn't know you would be getting food." Gabrielle turned with a smile and turned from Xena to step down the incline beyond the temple toward a grove of oak, pine and elm. A few cubits within was a clearing with a large fire already ablaze and reaching six feet high. Hanging over it on a spit was a skinned rabbit being cooked to roasted brown. The light cast odd shadows around them. Leading Argo with her, Xena tied him to a tree and pulled his blanket over him. She then glanced from it to Gabrielle taking and drinking from the water flask. Her attitude, her personality, her demeanor… It was all entirely different. She was practically… trying to be normal. Taking the flask from her, Xena hesitated from drinking from it watching Gabrielle stretch her arms out tiredly and then pulling her hands down tightly against her shoulders, breasts and abdomen. Her head turned up to Xena grinning ear to ear.

"We should be making Larissa by daybreak." She panned around looking around her; her voice becoming cold and intellectual. "It will be good seeing your family again and getting some home cooking."

"It sure will." Gabrielle smiled turning to look back to the cemetery. "I can taste mom's home cooking now."

"If only your family lived there!!" Xena scowled and grabbed her sword, pulling it out with declared force and holding it on her trusted friend. Gabrielle had now turned and looked back at her, her eyes solid white and glowing in the darkness as she realized her tiny indiscretion. Friend and ally clashed and lunged at each other as sword met staff. The would-be bard fought with the unusual ferocity and strength of someone a bit more than human as she backed, parried and swung at Xena. She was now proving to be nearly the equal of Xena herself. Faster and stronger, she could now hold her own against the experienced warrior princess. Xena leapt up unwilling to hurt her friend, but Gabrielle hissed as if she were some bacchae or lamia and tried to push her into the fire. They fought around the blaze trying to best each other as Gabrielle swung hard and knocked the sword hard from Xena's hand. Xena's eyes rounded with fear realizing that she was no longer fighting Gabrielle. She would never have wanted to hurt her, and yet, she was trying to knock her into the fire. Watching her sword land in the fire, Xena grabbed her chakram and threw it hard, but she watched in disbelief as it slowed and froze in mid-air inches from Gabrielle, just short of knocking her friend to the ground. Gabrielle smiled, her eyes back to normal and chided her for trying to hurt her.

"Xena," She sounded like a little girl. "Don't you like me anymore? If I didn't know better, you might be trying to hurt me." She beamed viciously and gestured outward with the suspended chakram now bounced backward along its path with a fury. Knocking the rabbit off the spit, Xena was knocked off her feet and felt herself flying and landing in several thorns and tangled weeds that she had passed on her way to the clearing. Grunting and ranting, Xena quickly jumped to her feet with her chakram back in her hand. The clearing was empty except for her and the fire. The roasted rabbit by her foot though cooked had burst open and was pouring out with maggots. She kicked it into the blaze as the maggots began screaming their tiny voices of pain. She whistled for Argo to come to her.

"I don't know who she is now." She grabbed the provisions and mounted the large Arabian horse. "But then she doesn't know who she's messing with."


	3. Chapter 3

PART 3

The children of Larissa watched eagerly as the son of Zeus and his best friend helped to rebuild a community center for them. It had been leveled a few months prior by a storm, and the local children had been running loose without it. A role model for the ages, Hercules dropped a huge support beam into the ground while his best friend and partner Iolaus tightened up the roof beams and started the foundation for a second floor. Amidst the other few locals working with them and preparing the framework, he gasped and dropped to the ground, watching the would-be god Hercules barely breaking a sweat. At times like this, he was glad to call him his best friend.

"I'm going for a drink." He replied.

"Thanks," Hercules looked at him. "And get one for yourself." They shared a friendly laugh as Iolaus picked up their empty flask and turned to the fountain in the square to refill it. The structure right now was a bare network of support beams and walls being laid out of stone and mud, but it was coming along directly as he stepped through an opening in an incomplete wall and crossed between merchants, running children and struggling mothers through the courtyard and then sat on the wall around the fountain of water. Dipping his flask to fill it, he turned his head up and noticed a familiar face. He grinned at the sign of another familiar face, turned back to Hercules and called out.

"Hercules," He replied. "Gabrielle is here."

"She is?" The tall demigod stepped out in the sun and looked over toward the road coming into town. The small blonde bard slipped down from her mount and left him unfettered by another group of horses and hastened for the fountain right next to Iolaus. Her left hand brushed her long hair from her face as she cupped water in her hands and lifted it to her lips. She was drinking from the fountain and appearing very haggard and tired as she drank her fill and splashed more water into her face. She looked unprepared as Iolaus hugged her.

"Gabby," He looked back into her confused eyes. "Where's Xena? Is she on the road behind you?" She looked back at him unaware who he was for a second then her emotion turned to a state of cold and calmed sobriety.

"Xena?" Gabrielle pulled her hair back. "Xena tried to kill me!" She was adamant.

"What?!!" Hercules and Iolaus chorused in unison and exchanged looks. They couldn't believe her.

"We were in Cynthus, that old cemetery, and she went nuts." Gabrielle started going into a story. "She told the priests there that I was possessed, but when they wouldn't kill me, she tried to do it. You've got to help me!"

"Cynthus?" Iolaus believed her. "Herc, I've heard the ghost stories from the cemetery there. It's bad news."

"Wait a minute," Something in the story didn't sound right to Hercules. "How'd Xena get possessed? She knows about that place. I don't think she'd be that careless."

"I don't know." Gabrielle was genuinely frantic. "You've got to help me get away from her."

"Xena's coming!!" Someone standing on the balcony over the courtyard looked out from the city and saw the familiar visage of a warrior goddess on a her Arabian steed and called out as she came charging at full gallop for the gates. It was almost as if the old Xena was back as some townspeople stayed to watch was she was going to do, but they knew they had nothing to fear. That was the old Xena; she had been through twice and had rid the area of brigands, warlords and thieves so they owed her all the rituals of hospitality. However, if another presence had reverted her to who she once was, Hercules was going to have to be the one to exorcise her.

"Hercules?" Iolaus asked to see what he believed.

"Get her out of sight." He told him. "I'll get to the bottom of this." Hercules watched the two of them head off and vanish behind the shops and markets as he turned to the gates. Argo charged in snorting from his run as Xena dropped off brandishing her sword as if ready for battle. Upset and determined, she looked ready to fight.

"Hercules!" She gasped out of breath. "Gabrielle, have you seen her?"

"Gabrielle?" He looked around. "Gabrielle, who?"

"She's possessed." She narrowed her eyes at him. "We were in Cynthus and I think she's dangerous. I need to..."

"I guess that confirms it." He cut her off with a knock to the abdomen. She flew back a several feet and looked back with surprise. Why would he do that?! They were friends and allies, almost lovers, and he had struck her!!! Confused and surprised, Xena shook off that momentary impact and jumped to her feet once more.

"What are you doing?!!" She leapt up and started kicking him in the face. Hercules wandered back from the blows as she finally knocked him down. "Have you lost it?" She looked over him.

"You're about to." He knocked her feet out and jumped up to gain the advantage. "Gabrielle told us everything!" He gripped her chakram at the same time she pulled it out and used her momentum to throw her into the brick wall of the local inn. Bouncing off that, Xena's voice let loose her battle cry along with a barrage of kicks to his chest. The two of them were nearly equals in fighting experience, but while Hercules was stronger, Xena was stronger and faster. Confused townsfolk hastened to get out of the way of their fight and scrambled around merchants and displays of produce. A few children were rushed down an alleyway past Iolaus and Gabrielle watching from a back alley along with several other witnesses placing bets between the son of Zeus and the Warrior Goddess.

"I really want to thank you for saving me." Gabrielle watched from over his shoulder. "I hope he'll be able to kill her."

"Yeah, right." Iolaus did a double take. "Wait a minute, Hercules won't kill anyone. You ought to know..." He looked back at her as she changed from a nasty conniving grin to a more humbled look of distant apathy. As Iolaus peered over her, he wondered why he had taken her word for it. She hadn't even called him by name yet. "You lied! You ain't Gabrielle! You tricked us!!"

"Oh, Hercules…" Gabrielle tried covering up and improvising. "Come on, I'm sure you're…"

"I'm Iolaus!" There was the sound of a crash between the two fighting heroes from the courtyard. "You are possessed!! You lied to us!!"

"I do that." Gabrielle shined, smiled innocently and clawed him across the face. As he reeled from that, he felt her fingers on his chest and then his feet being lifted off the ground as she lifted him up and flipped him over her head into a wagon filled with fertilizer. She seemed almost as strong as Hercules! Feeling embarrassed and humiliated to have been deceived so easily, he rolled over the cow manure and cracked open the side of the cart onto the ground. Coughing up the dirt he had swallowed, he looked up as she stared giggling down upon him. She looked harmless and just as attractive as the last time he had seen her, but the look in her eyes was almost pure evil as she screamed and struck the wall at the end of the alley as hard as he could with her foot. He watched in disbelief witnessing her force loose the bricks, pushing her body through them into another part of the city and then vanishing from sight.

"Hercules!" Iolaus lurched himself up in pain and limped back out toward Xena and Hercules fighting sword to cudgel stick. They were at most matching each other blow for blow as he hobbled between them. "She lied!!!" He wheezed between pangs of pain. "Gabrielle is the one possessed!!"

"She lied?!!"

"Now do you believe me?!!!" Xena was moments from severing that cudgel from Hercules at the wrist. She turned to Iolaus as townsfolk stood clear trying to understand what was happening in their upset little market place. "Where'd she go?!!" Xena demanded to know.

"Back this way!!"

"Sorry about the misunderstanding." Hercules realized his error and stopped fighting as he and Xena rushed after Iolaus. He looked up and briefly stood worried at the sight of the hole in the wall.

"It was a good fight." Xena mumbled slipping through the hole in the broken wall. "Another moment though, and I would have killed you."

"In your dreams." Hercules found themselves behind several markets and then stables. Entering the back way through a smithy, they found the blacksmith screaming and cursing in his native Achaean language.

"What happened?" Xena rushed to help him.

"This hateful little blonde just stole one of my horses and took off with it." He told them.

"Sounds like we got a runaway blonde." Xena whistled for Argo.


	4. Chapter 4

PART 4

Tricca was a small town in the middle of nowhere west of Iolcus and north of Larissa. Not much happened here and very little happened, but fate had set it on the road heading north out of Thessaly and up into Macedonia. It had nothing to offer to warlords and it was rumored that there was nothing here for thieves to steal. The townsfolk were friendly to travelers traveling north into Dacia and Gaul, but they were often riled by the simplest of annoyances.

"Alright, alright..." The would-be warrior Joxer stood on a chair in the tavern. "You want to hear the song. Here it is..." The skinny geek cleared his voice. "I'm Joxer the mighty, I travel through the... ACK!" Someone's hand stopped the air in his throat.

"I am going to kill you personally..." Autolycus glared at him as only he could. "If you sing that song again." Both he and Joxer had something in common as friends and erstwhile allies of both Xena and Hercules. Autolycus was the self-proclaimed king of thieves, and reputedly the son of the god Hermes, but he wasn't sure of that legend. He didn't feel like he had god blood in him; all his gifts of thievery had been developed through years of trial and error.

"Why are we here?" Salmoneus sat with them. He was another acquaintance of the two, but of the two, he much more preferred trying to get rich through Autolycus than dealing with Joxer's idiocy. "Where's Xena? I'm tired of waiting for her to show up to tell us what she wanted."

"Oh yeah," Joxer grinned embarrassingly. "About that," He grinned even more nervously. "Xena didn't really call for you guys. I did. I thought you guys would like to be my partners as we..."

"Forget the song." Salmoneus looked at Autolycus. "Kill him now!"

"Not a problem." The king of thieves stood up and pushed his chair out of the way as Joxer leapt up and out the door screaming for help. He knocked the goat out of someone's hands and jumped over some kids in his way with Autolycus coming after him with his rope being tied into a noose.

"Come on, Autolycus," Joxer tried to reason with him while backing from him. "You can't kill me. We're buddies!"

"Since when?"

"Good point." Joxer turned to run and heard hoof beats bearing down on him as he whirled around on one foot. Gabrielle gave him a nasty look as her horse snorted and pounded the ground under him. She reined her horse stomping the ground and looked around the mountains around her trying to figure out where she was then looked at Joxer and tried to figure out what to do next.

"Gabby!!" Joxer realized Xena had to be near and turned round bravely knowing where Gabrielle was that Xena was not far behind, and she would not let him get hurt. "Okay, Autolycus try and do something. Xena won't let you hurt me." He challenged Autolycus to lay one finger on him.

"Oh yeah," Autolycus reigned the horse. "Gabrielle, where's Xena?"

"What?" She looked at them both. She acted as if she didn't recognize them for a minute. "Is there anyone who doesn't know… Oh yeah, uh, Xena... she's behind me… trying to kill me."

"What?!" Salmoneus came up behind Joxer being strangled by Autolycus. He couldn't believe what he was hearing.

"We were in Cynthus with Hercules and... oh, what was his name?"

"Iolaus?" Joxer knew the heroes as well.

"Yeah, Iolaus." The bard continued her deception. "And they became possessed by evil spirits, yeah, and they're trying to kill me. I'm the only one who can stop them. I'm traveling to get an amulet to save their lives."

"Cynthus." Salmoneus had heard of the place. "I've heard of it. That cemetery there is bad news."

"You need an amulet to save them." Autolycus stroked his goatee and looked up to her. "I'll help. I am after all the King of Thieves..."

"Really." Gabrielle beamed with that new accumulated knowledge.

"Friends..." Joxer stood on a cart to address the townsfolk of Tricca as Autolycus pushed him off and took his place.

"People of Tricca." He began calling out to the people around him. "Our good friends Hercules, Xena and Iolaus need our help. Evil forces from beyond this world have possessed them and are forcing them into evil." A few people stopped to listen. "Let us repay them for making our roads and villages safe from bandits, brigands and warlords..."

"And thieves..." Salmoneus added as Joxer folded his arms and nodded along with the announcement.

"Well, let's not go crazy here." Autolycus whispered to him. "Don't we owe it to them." He called back out to the growing crowd of concerned Triccans cheering back to his noble deed.

"Right." Salmoneus raised his hand in agreement then turned up to Gabrielle on the black horse. "Where is this amulet?"

"Still north." Gabrielle added still on her horse. "In Antequeria."

"Never heard of it." Joxer looked puzzled.

"Worse yet," Gabrielle continued to the throngs of people gathering en masse to listen. "They're telling everyone that I'm the one who is possessed." She grinned as if it couldn't possibly be true. "Can you believe that??!"

"Why you're just as normal as the rest of us." Autolycus noticed Joxer nose mining. "Well, most of us." He mounted the horse with her. "Salmoneus, round up the villagers to take Xena, Hercules and Iolaus alive. We need to find a way to hold them until we return with the amulet. Joxer, stay out of the way. We are off to Anti...Ante..."

"Antequeria."

"That's Greek to me." He mused at the name of the unknown village. "Let's ride!" Gabrielle kicked at her horse as it bolted out the other end of town with her and the king of thieves riding upon it.

"For Hercules!!" Someone yelled as the town banded together to plan an onslaught to take the heroes alive.


	5. Chapter 5

PART 5

Xena, Hercules and Iolaus galloped into Tricca on separate horses as everyone looked up strange to them. Leading the way on Argo, Xena noticed she was getting a lot of strange looks and reactions from the people around her. Mothers grabbed their children, men grabbed and brandished their weapons and others carefully surrounded them. Why was she getting such a cold reaction? Iolaus looked at them and wondered if they were all under a spell.

"Why are they looking at us like that?" He asked.

"She's been here." Xena didn't need to ask. She looked up and saw Salmoneus and Joxer standing at the helm of the unruly mob. They scowled toward them and pounded weapons into their hands.

"Xena," Salmoneus replied. "Don't worry. We know you're not accountable for what you do."

"Salmoneus," Hercules started. "You don't under…."

Before Xena could do anything, she was pulled off Argo by her feet and almost suddenly bound in straps and chains. Hercules watched Iolaus torn from his horse and then began pushing back himself. Xena began screaming as she tore from her would-be restraints and pushed back from the mob. Someone tried to strike her over the head as Hercules heard a familiar warrior princess battle cry. Xena shot skyward still tangled in her binds, somersaulted over the crowd of people attacking her and landed near a market. She turned over a barrel and pushed it the ones carrying off Iolaus. Fighting sword to clubs, she watched Hercules holding back as he tossed off anyone who came after him. He didn't want to hurt anyone. They had all been deceived as he had been. Who or whatever Gabrielle had become, she had become devious and manipulative, and his friends and allies had fallen under her lies. Watching from a distance, Salmoneus watched as he wracked his brain for a way to save his friends.

"Salmoneus!" Iolaus clawed his way up the wall to where he was standing to escape his confused attackers. "What are you doing?"

"Demon from Hades!!" Joxer jumped toward Iolaus to pummel him and instead sailed past him to the ground below. Salmoneus and Joxer exchanged glances as they checked to see if he was all right.

"Iolaus, please," Salmoneus unspiritedly tried to warn him with a staff. "Gabrielle told us you were cursed. Just let us help you."

"Cursed?" Iolaus couldn't believe it. He knocked, whacked and tossed two more attackers. "And you believed her? I'm not cursed."

"You'd say that if you were, wouldn't you?" Salmoneus answered as Iolaus rolled his eyes at that comment with five more villagers coming to restrain him for his own good. He grabbed a beam over his head and kicked them away then climbed higher to get away from the frenzy around him. Hercules and Xena were barely holding their own as they were forced back to back to a large net dropped from a line over the square.

"Hercules!!" Iolaus screamed from a rooftop kicking away men trying to drag him down. "They think we're the ones possessed! Gabrielle lied to them too!!"

"Figures." Hercules noticed the net as he and Xena looked at each other and jumped out of the way from being nearly scooped up in it. Xena pulled out her chakram as he lifted a huge log from a pile of timber and began pushing back.

"Stop it! Stop it!!! STOP IT!!!!" His voice strained to get over the yells and screams. Except for the animals braying and the rattling chains, it slowly became tolerable for him to talk. Still brandishing weapons, the crowd of concerned farmers and merchants hesitated slowly and held their swords and clubs at the ready.

"Xena, lower your chakram." Hercules whispered to her as he tried to take charge. He tried responding logically rational. "Okay, you want to capture us because you think we're possessed, right?" The crowd agreed with a dozen different voices and responses.

"Okay," Hercules hoped he had their attention. "Well, if we were, which we're not, would we willingly surrender ourselves to you?" Someone almost answered then went quiet. A few voices began mumbling in confused and puzzled tones as Xena lowered her sword. Her bearing was familiar and her stance obvious as she turned and lifted Joxer up from the thorny bushes in which he had landed.

"As well as you know us," She talked to him. "Don't you think you would know us? Can you possibly say Gabrielle was acting normal?!"

"Well, now that you mention it..." He was dropped where he was pulled out.

"Hercules," Salmoneus forced a nervous grin as the embarrassed citizens of Tricca apologized and tried to act as if nothing had happened. "We're sorry, but... You mean… Gabrielle lied to us? She's the one possessed?"

"Yes." Hercules grinned and hugged him for realizing the truth.

"Where is Gabrielle?" Xena stared into his opportunistic eyes.

"Oh," Salmoneus remembered. "She took with Autolycus with her to Antequeria. Supposedly to get something to help you guys. Some sort of amulet…"

"Antequeria." Iolaus had climbed back down from the high roof with confused and embarrassed Triccans apologizing and hugging him. "Never heard of it."

"I have." Hercules glanced around the mess of the courtyard. "Athena told me about it when I was a kid. It's an ancient city that predates Zeus taking over Olympus. They practiced some very dark arts into trying to become gods, but Cronus and the Titans buried the city deep underground to try and destroy it. Some of them survived and taught their dark secrets to other cultures like the Sumerians and the Cimmerians."

"The Celts?" Xena asked.

"Them too."

"Must be who's possessing Gabrielle. One of their mystics or priests." Xena realized. "The Cynthus cemetery is finally being exorcised. Someone must have used Gabrielle to escape it before they sanctified the ground and then to return to the city for something."

"For what?" Iolaus asked.

"An ancient amulet with the ability to give her forgotten power." Hercules replied out loud.

"The secret to become a god?" Joxer finally understood what was going on.

"And Autolycus is blindly leading her to it." Salmoneus now had a new reason to be scared.


	6. Chapter 6

PART 6

Gabrielle and Autolycus had slowed as they traveled through what was part of the most desolate part of Thrace. They were almost as far west as the Hellespont and the land was partially rocky and partially wooded with fragments of forgotten ruins and stone columns still sitting abandoned after several hundred years. Five hundred year old trees clogged ancient roads, and thick foliage forced them off and back over their route dangerously close to the cliff near the Aegean Sea. Their horse disinterestedly carried them further through the silent depressing land. Gabrielle looked forlorn and upset at the surroundings and peered disconcertingly over timeworn landmarks.

"It's all so changed." She mumbled. "The sea's further away than it was. My friends and I used to play in these woods. There were houses everywhere."

"Gabrielle…" Autolycus looked at some of the ancient oaks stretching to the sky. Some of them were thick enough to be hollowed out into a home. Some of the older ones looked half buried in ancient untold landslides. There were no animals in the dense brush and the road was long gone, yet, Gabrielle continued unabated as if she knew where she was going.

"Gabby," Autolycus got her attention. "This place is...well, upsetting. Are you sure you know where you're going?"

"Sure." She looked ahead as the ground descended down to the shore. "Down there."

Partially obscured by a rocky cliff, Autolycus saw the remains of ruined dark columns and temples similar to what he saw as a boy on the acropolis at Athens. These structures and once fine architectural wonders, however, were ruined and falling apart to the elements. Deserted and unattended for centuries, perhaps even millennia, the structures and squares were covered in weeds, vines and wild brush reaching up to the sky as the land stretched into the water. A creek poured through a submerged roadway and a waterfall fell over the roof and into a torrent pouring out the entrance of an old shop buried almost to the roof in the sand. An old courtyard was on sand descending into the water. Some of the structures appeared chiseled out of the rock as other parts were completely covered in twisting and turning weeds. It was obvious that the city had been decimated and abandoned in the mad catastrophic repercussions from the sinking of Atlantis some five centuries before.

"Gabrielle," He replied. "There's nothing left to steal here much less an amulet."

"This is Abydos." Gabrielle answered. "It was built on top of Antequeria."

"Wait a minute," Autolycus didn't like this anymore. "How did you know about this? This is way too old for you to have known about it."

"Over here." She looked down an old well in the center of a courtyard surrounded by cliffs and other forgotten structures crumbling in the sand. She picked up a rock and dropped it in as she listened for the sound of it hitting bottom. Autolycus hadn't heard the rock falling much less hitting bottom, but she somehow had.

"Fifty cubits… give or take." She estimated from the sound of the fall. "You got enough rope?"

"I always got enough." He tossed his hook and latched on to one of the ruins. Testing it to hold, he dropped the other end down the well. "Ladies first." He offered. Determined and unafraid, Gabrielle grabbed the rope and overzealously began descending down into the earth. Autolycus came behind her as the inky darkness began to overwhelm him. The sky above them coming through the opening began to dwindle to the size of a solitary star as they dropped lower and lower with nothing but the rope to go by to lead them.

"Gabrielle, are you okay?"

"Sure," They continued descending through the eternal night for a long period of night, the well opening growing dimmer and dimmer to show how far they had fallen. After an hour of nothing but rope and dark air around him, Autolycus realized he wouldn't be doing this if the conditions weren't so dire. A lost amulet to exorcise three friends… just how good of friends were they?

"Gabrielle?"

"Yes?" She struck a torch. Looking down, Autolycus saw himself a few feet above a tiled floor covered in sand. The bright star of sunlight from the top of the well was completely gone. It had been replaced by the pitch-black roof of a cavern partially held up by the scant illumination of ancient pillars shaped like men and women. It was best described as if they were in eternal night in a city surrounded by high mountains and one lone barely noticeable light over them.

"You first this time." Gabrielle gave him the torch as she followed behind him.

"Where do I go?"

"Down there." She pointed to a small crack in the cavern guarded by two time wrought statues. Just wide enough for them to enter, he continued on a few feet then felt hit his boot step on a loose tile.

"Back!!" There was a whoosh of air as several metal spikes dropped out of shafts in the rock ceiling to pierce them. Missing them by mere inches, he grinned at the trap. "Those ancestors of ours weren't very bright. Bloodthirsty, perhaps, but not bright." He squeezed between them pulling Gabrielle behind him. Another step and the floor gave way. He pulled out his collapsible staff to stop their fall as the floor he was on continued sliding down deep below him through a long chute to an unknown fate. As it crashed to a stop beneath them, the ceiling slid down to meet it in an effort to crush anyone unfortunate to be between it. Missing the top part, Autolycus looked back to Gabrielle in the partial light of the still flickering torch.

"I've known Egyptian tombs that were more challenging than this." He hid his bead of sweat.


	7. Chapter 7

PART 7

Xena, Hercules and Iolaus charged through the woods at full gallop following the trail left by the horse Gabrielle had stolen. The path took them across the high cliffs beyond Amphipolis and along the ancient roads to Abydos, one of several forgotten ghost towns reported in these days to be haunted. As they descended into the crumbling ruins partially enveloped by the sea, they were on another mission to not just save Gabrielle from the spirit possessing her but to save Autolycus from his blind faith in her.

"Hercules!" Iolaus saw the stolen horse first tied down near an abandoned well. Xena stopped and unmounted Argo as she noticed the fresh line dropped down into the well.

"They've gone down into the city alright." She looked to Hercules. "I'll get Gabrielle, you two warn Autolycus." She grabbed a branch from the ground and wrapped a rag across the end to make a torch. Lighting it, she let loose with a battle cry as she jumped feet first into the well and plunged deep into the ground.

"Is she giving the orders?" Iolaus looked to Hercules.

"You going to refuse them?" Hercules smirked, created his own torch and dropped down into the well himself. Practically swallowed up by the earth, they dropped down into the darkness. The top of the well showed them where they were, Xena's torch growing fainter beneath them showing them where they were going. Sliding down underground further than they thought they'd ever been, they wondered if they were going to run into Hades or come through the ceiling of his palace in Tartarus. As the top of the light from the well vanished within the first ten minutes, they dropped for another fifty and an indiscernible time later landed in the long forgotten floor of hallways that had not seen the light of day nor the sounds of life for centuries.

"Antequeria." Xena spoke as she studied the disturbed dirt on the floor. Their torch was throwing off weird illumination on the intact walls holding up the mile or so of ground above their heads. The shimmering lights showed only so much of the once great hall for ten or so feet before it petered out.

"Hercules," Iolaus looked around. "Any surprises we need to know about?"

"I'll tell you when we find them."

"This way!" Xena detected where Gabrielle had taken Autolycus and seemed to randomly shoot off in the pitch-blackness. It was worse than a cloudy night without stars in the middle of the desert. The air was stagnant and stale with the fresh smell of nonexistence. Corridors and broken beams and low tunnels appeared seconds too late, but apparently they were on the right track as they found sprung traps along the way. Their voices and footsteps echoing back to them through the sunken and partially preserved underground metropolis, a true realm of the dead.

"What was that?" Autolycus heard the shuffling echoes from faraway catching up with him from far behind him. Being lifted out of a pit lined with sharp spears, he looked back into the nothingness they had left behind and wondered what ghosts they had wakened.

"The foundation settling." Gabrielle claimed.

"After five thousand years???"

"Would you like to know it might be ghosts?" Gabrielle beamed excited at the thought.

"Good point." Autolycus gave her the torch. "Why don't you spring some traps for a change?"

"Don't need to." Gabrielle squinted back the way she had come as if she knew what was coming. She looked at their path of footsteps and grinned to the self-called King of Thieves. "Down here."

They emerged into a large chamber almost as huge as the one they had entered into from the well. Surrounded by tombs both shattered and intact, the floor was askew with random bones and a skull or two. In the center a strange sort of ceremonial table rested under a free hanging decoration dedicated to the dead. It had been pieced out of the skeletal remains of once living human people. Nearly everything around them was created out of human bones and remains. Dried severed limbs and decapitated heads on dismembered torsos grouped and stuck together now served the purpose of a dark altar. Surrounding it were the open and partially disturbed bodies of long dead men and women from over a thousand years before resting in vaults chipped out of rock. Gabrielle plunged the torch dead center in the center of a design on the dark altar then looked toward a solitary tomb where the armored skeleton in it was holding a talisman clutched to its chest.

"That's it, that's it." She announced.

"Not so fast," Autolycus decided to get smart. "Something about this has not exactly seemed kosher. You seemed to have known too much. Is this really a way to help Xena, Hercules and Iolaus?"

"Want to know where the treasure vault is?"

"Well," Autolycus turned round to the tomb. "It ain't like any one's going to miss it." He peered back to where she was pointing, created another torch from one left behind in the rooms of the ancient buried catacombs and was off to leave her to her business. He turned back the way she had pointed and noticed a room they had passed coming into this buried temple to the dead. In the light of the torch, he saw colors glistening back from what looked like gems and rubies imbedded in a giant snake statue entwined around a staff. Its eyes were the largest diamonds he'd ever seen. Around the jewel-incrusted serpent were offerings of gold and bronze in various clay urns, possibly offerings to this forgotten idol. Whipping out his leather sack, he began taking handfuls as if he were browsing in a market. After a few minutes, he was gazing at those large diamond eyes of the statue. One would be a fortune, but both would make him set for life. He pulled his dagger off his belt to pry one of them loose and into his pocket.

"Come to poppa!!" He grinned knowing he was going to be its new owner, but someone grabbed him from behind. Still a bit spooked in this buried haunted city, he let out a small shriek and looked back into Hercules' face. "You? Here?"

"Where's Gabrielle?" Xena's face came into the light of his torch. Crossing his arms disgustedly at him, Iolaus stood behind her also ready to keep him poor and honest.

"Back there." He gestured and Xena took off at great haste. Looking through the eternal darkness, she noticed light glowing from a room in these shorn caves and rushed toward it. Coming upon the chamber, she noticed the numerous bodies and then the body-strewn floor leading to a freshly violated tomb. Someone had ripped apart one of the desiccated corpses. The fresh broken parts were littered with Gabrielle's clothes lying entwined in the dusty remains. She looked around cautiously with her fingers tensing on the handle of her sword unwarily expecting the worst and saw who she thought was her friend wearing the armor torn and stolen from the corpse that once worn it and lifting a vial to her lips. She grabbed her chakram quickly and threw it hard and shattered the vial from reaching Gabrielle's lips. The former bard looked up at her with very little surprise and then grinned almost expecting her.

"Xena…" Gabrielle beamed to her. "I heard you coming after me. Don't you think I'd be prepared for your arrival?"

"I want Gabrielle back." Her eyes defiant, her teeth gritted together, Xena held her sword at length on her friend. "I don't know who you are, but I want you out of her body and I want her back to me."

"You don't get it, do you?" The former blonde sidekick chuckled at her. "I am Gabrielle. Her thoughts, her feelings, her… body, and all these wonderful powers coursing through me. They feel great. No longer being your little lackey…"

"It wasn't like that, and she knew it!!!" Xena reached with her free hand to the woman she considered her sister. "Gabrielle loved me! She's not doing this!!!"

"Xena…" The blonde bard's voice changed back to a recognizable tone. Her head started shaking a bit and trying to reach out mentally from her body. She seemed to be fighting a much stronger presence. "Don't let her… Don't let her… open the sarcophagus…"

"Sarcophagus?" Xena noticed the altar and was struck upside the head for being distracted. Gabrielle had grabbed her by her head and flipped and twisted her upside down, but Xena managed to use the position to kick her former friend off her. The petite blonde crashed into one of the niches holding dusty and dried bones and heard the sound of a chakram being unsheathed. It ricocheted off part of the tomb and started flying straight at her as her hand pulled it out of the air. She now wielded it. It was hers now.

"Way too easy…" She looked back to Xena and gestured with her free arm. Jumped up into the air, Xena found herself frozen where she was. How could she fight someone, a person she still loved and cared about, who could bend and control reality around her better than most of the gods, and still hope to defeat her? Stuck levitating in the air, trapped in mid-pose, her eyes turned back to Gabrielle beaming from behind a cold and devious face.

"This can't be happening!!" Xena fought to free herself from this dark magic. "I destroyed your potion!"

"Oh, that was just water for your benefit." Gabrielle smiled to her dementedly holding the chakram as her own weapon in her right hand. Holding up her left hand, she revealed in the palm of her hand a strange bright blue jelly that glowed in the dark. "And this is the stuff Titans are born of." She threw the chakram at Xena and swallowed the luminescent ambrosia in two simultaneous strokes occurring at once. Struck out of the air by her own weapon, Xena jumped for Gabrielle and missed her own returning weapon, but the possessed bard knocked her from out of the air as if she were annoying gnat. Laughing at Xena, she reached down to the warrior princess as Xena nursed her jaw. Xena now feared the worse. Her best friend was buried under the personality of this strange person and was now going to become even more powerful than she was already was? Did anyone know what was in that ancient concoction she had swallowed? Xena's eyes stared defiantly into her friend's face and peered into a bright light in Gabrielle's green eyes that started getting brighter and more brilliant to her. Out the corner of her vision, Hercules rushed to the room and froze in the doorway upon seeing Gabrielle holding Xena up off the floor. He had spent too much time leading Iolaus and Autolycus to safety. Realizing she was not alone, Gabrielle flung Xena like a rag doll to the far side of the room.

"Son of Zeus!" Another woman's voice came from Gabrielle's throat as Xena coughed and pulled herself up. "You are no match for me now!!"

"Well," Hercules remarked. "I'd like to think otherwise." He watched as she threw a blow of invisible force that knocked him to his feet. Something else started happening as the tunnels started groaning. Something was happening as particles of light came from the long-dead bodies and everywhere else that had once seen the light of the sky. It was almost as if whatever were meant to be stars descended into the caves and streamed in mystical currents straight into the possessed bard. Scowling, Gabrielle growled and hissed as a gem in her armor began glowing from absorbing all the energies of the buried dead around it. Her eyes were completely lit up now as Xena returned fighting. She bolted up and jumped at her feet first. A mere gesture from her former friend and she hurled by the poltergeist energy into Hercules. Shrieking in pain, Gabrielle felt as if her body were exploding as she gestured once more against even more lights entering and filling her possessed body. She began screaming as if she was in pain. The artificial ambrosia had been meant for a mere mortal to become a god, but she was already enhanced by dark energies through her possession of this body. All this extra energy being poured into her could be more than she could take!

"Too much!! It's too much!!!" Her alien voice screamed as she realized she had taken too much of the ancient potion. It was too much power entering her body as the rushing winds infesting the city rushed through her hair. She held her hands up and looked at them pulsating and trembling as she fought to catch her breath. Hercules reached to withstand her and realized too late she was just a bit taller than he was now. She gestured again to his presence as a huge wind blew him and then Xena rushing at him out of the room to crash and bounce off the winding tunnels to the surface. Gabrielle's voice screamed in rage as somehow the wind poured from her body.

"What's happening??" Hercules collided off a statue in the dark corridor as Xena was blown down next to him and clutched at another rock formation. Their torches permanently snuffed out as they were buffeted around in the darkness getting struck by the poltergeist blows of flying debris. It was almost as if there was some hurricane trapped deep within the earth and trying to burst free to the surface. They grabbed two pillars in the dark as Autolycus and then Iolaus blew beyond them in confused surprise.

"She did it!!" Xena screamed over the buffeting and howling winds drowning out Gabrielle's screams of tortured pain in this subterranean tsunami. "She turned herself into a god!!! And I couldn't stop her!!!!" Hercules cursed out loud as his pillar broke loose. Xena reached to hold against the sheer darkness whipping around her then felt her body sailing away too in the inky black tornado. The heads of forgotten statues turned to where she was and appeared scared with fright. Even the dead of this buried city had become afraid. An ancient power they had feared had been unleashed. The laws of reality were altered as the underground whirlwind spun Xena backwards and forwards. Tossed around like a child's toy into walls and flying debris, she wasn't sure which was up or down anymore just before she noticed the light beneath her she was being hurled at top speed.

Outside under the sun, Hercules looked up to sky once more as Xena was fired out the top of the well and into the sky like a pellet from a slingshot. It looked like the earth had spit them up as they shot out of the well and thrown into the sky. The horses neighed and ran in fear as the ground quaked and rose a bit. Ancient ruins that were still standing after all these years shattered and sunken structures sat upright before collapsing completely. Autolycus scrambled as Xena landed on top of him.

"What's going on?" He was petrified and a bit annoyed at losing those riches. "What's happening?"

"That!!" Iolaus could finally see straight as he saw a huge hand reached up out of the ground and clawed at the sky. It was more than seven feet wide and attached to a ten-foot arm as it continued rising up high above them almost fifty feet on the body it was attached too. Finally reaching daylight from where she had almost buried herself alive, Gabrielle revealed her new godly self now completely ensconced and in control with her new godhood. Her armor was a little different now after being pulled and stretched across her new godlike frame. The new size and stature she had been endowed with was an unexpected side bonus as she beamed with glee and stared upon this bright new world to conquer. Her once green eyes were now solid white while the possessed bard became a god with the full desire to storm Olympus.

"Behold on me you foolish mortals!!" Her voice vibrated with the force of a hurricane's ego, her titanic foot stepped up out of the ground threatening to crush Iolaus and her unearthly glowing eyes looked down upon them no taller than her ankles. "For the Titans are reborn!!!!"


	8. Chapter 8

PART 8

There was not another war-god like Ares. While some of the others with that title were exemplified by bravery, cunning and merciless pride, he was often loutish, over bearing and crude. Most often interested in the more bloodthirsty parts of warfare, the sheer rush of energy more often drove him from just killing than actually driving armies to a purpose. Laying around in his hall on Olympus, he stared down over Demeter's gardens and contemplating torching them again to remove the sight of them.

"What are you doing?" Discord appeared in a flash of light. "Do you realize there has not been a good battle in over a week?" She monetarily shrieked. "You don't think mortals have found peace, do you?"

"I'm bored..." Ares flipped over in his bed and picked some of the grapes at his headboard. "There's no challenge. There's no... " He looked at his little sister a second. His left eyebrow went up as he sat up and tossed her a small shield. She was caught unaware as she did not trust that look.

"Hold this."

"What for?!" She caught the shield.

"A little higher... a bit to the left..." He guided her movements. "A scosh to the right. Perfect!"

"What's this for?" Discord shot him a look.

"Target practice!" He fired his strongest lightning bolt as she flew out of his room, over the head of the goat-god Pan, past the stairway leading outside and into a statue of Perseus at the end of the hall. Pan started laughing at the spectacle as his goat hooves danced and clapped against the ethereal marble floor. A few feet away, Iris the rainbow goddess turned away to hide a small smirk and the Horae whispered secrets to each other after the spectacle.

"The only thing little sister's are good for!!" Ares told the god of forests as Discord screamed and leapt to her feet.

"Do you know how much that hurts?!!!" She yelled at him.

"You shouldn't have moved." Ares stood and shot her a look.

"Ares!!" Zeus's voice sounded like thunder as he stood above his daughter scrambling to her feet. The thunder-god wondered how he was going guide mortals to reach their full potential if he couldn't control his family. The dark leather-clad goddess narrowed her eyes toward her brother as she pretended to adore their father. Zeus placed his arm over her daughter to give her a bit of support and turned his head up trying to be the father he wanted to be.

"Can't you think of something else to do?" Zeus inquired.

"Can I kill Hercules?"

"No."

"Well, if you're going to bind my hands." They noticed the usually bright shimmering clouds around Olympus growing darker. It was a rather unusual phenomenon as at the gates Janus stopped looking earthward and turned to the skies. The Muses stopped skipping and dancing through the gardens and the Fates stopped their eternal thread and looked up as well as a very old force made itself renown. The clouds shaped a familiar face that Ares and Discord recognized. Pan appeared in awe as he wondered who threatened the gods.

"Son of Cronus!" Gabrielle's voice came from above them out of clouds shaped in her visage. "Your father killed my father!! Nothing more than the deaths of his children and all his descendants can stop me!!! Olympus and the world you know will be mine!! You don't dare defeat because of the body of the innocent that I do possess!! Death to the Olympians and their tyranny!!!" The face paled and the clouds returned back to normal. Zeus scowled as he looked up to his older brother Hades appearing in smoke before him. He rarely came to Olympus except to complain or ask for a favor.

"Brother," The grim god paused for respect. "The presence inhabiting the mortal has weakened the binds containing the Titans. They have yet to burst free, but they are conscious. She appears to be channeling energies from them."

"That's…" Zeus scratched his beard. "Not good."

"That was that accursed bard who follows Xena." Discord whispered to Ares.

"Xena is possibly having conniptions over this." Ares whispered back as Zeus noticed them.

"Ares, bring Hercules and Xena here. Now!!"

"No," Ares stood up to his father. "We can handle her without them!! We do not need Hercules. What is one inexperienced Titan??"

Discord watched with glee as a lightning bolt ten times stronger than he or she could conjure struck Ares. Flying to the end of the hallway, he sailed past the concerned faces of Hera and Demeter rushing to the advice of their brother. Discord grinned a bit to see her brother tossed around.

"What I meant to say..." Ares groaned and stood up. "Sure. Hercules and Xena, not a problem." He began mumbling under breath as he teleported himself to Earth. "What do I have to do for a little respect...?"


	9. Chapter 9

PART 9

The skies throughout Thessaly were growing darker and darker as if storms were rolling through the region from the north. There was a sense that a shift in power had erupted on Olympus as sheepherders looked up and saw the huge figure passing in the hills beyond the fields below Olympus. Some saw the titanic beauty in godly armor and flowing blonde locks and thought she looked like the bard, the exuberant partner who followed Xena, but then they shook their heads or shrugged their shoulders. Several didn't have the time to do that as they saw lightning coming from her hands and watched their farms burned before them. Maybe she was a daughter of Aphrodite or another of those gigantic progeny of Poseidon, like Chrysaor or Orion. Whatever her name or origin, she was determined to slay the gods of Olympus.

"Alyssia!" Ares appeared suddenly after a burst of light in a tree as Gabrielle stopped and looked at the war-god. He grinned and looked into her eyes as he scanned over her new body and figure and grimaced in perverted admiration. "That's right, I know your real name. I also know you would like to destroy the Olympians. However, I can show you the back door into Olympus if you could take it into your heart to let me help you. We could be partners! How about it?"

Ares watched as her mighty hand started to reach for him then instead gripped the tip of the tree he was in and began pulling it back. Ares hung on as the trunk of the pine tree was arched back nearly halfway to the ground.

"What are you doing?" He screamed. "Stop it! Stop it!!"

She did and he was launched into space like a stone from slingshot. He looked down and saw miles of farms shoot under him too fast to make out.

"Hercules," Iolaus stopped his horse from trying to catch up with Gabrielle. "What is that? Is it a bird? A plain…" He paused for a second. "…old harpy?"

"A harpy?" Hercules wondered himself about the sailing wingless figure.

"It's Ares." Xena had to grin a little bit as her nemesis hit the ground hard and left a trench behind him twenty feet long as he skidded to a stop in the rock hard ground. The impact would have killed and stripped the skin off a mere mortal, but gods were made of sterner, denser stuff than mortals. As Ares awkwardly stood back up, it was obvious he had met the new Gabrielle. He sauntered a bit trying to stand and catch his bearings, cracked his neck and stared indifferently to Xena, Hercules and Iolaus.

"Tried to strike a bargain, huh." Xena replied knowing the truth.

"No," Ares lied in case his father was listening. "Tried to get her to turn back and she wouldn't go for it." He looked to Hercules. "Father, on the other hand, thinks you can stop her."

"We're still some distance to be any good." Iolaus admitted as a flash of light from the war-god's fingers transported the heroes without their horses to one of the smaller peaks adjacent to Olympus. They looked up and saw the cloud enshrouded home of the gods lighting up with lightning bolts and thundering with booms of thunder louder than they could stand. Mortals had long believed that Olympus was atop the mountain it was known for, but the realm of Olympus was almost as vast as the former kingdom of Atlantis and much more vast than the mere mountain top. The mountaintop merely held merely one of a few access points from Earth to the land of the gods and Gabrielle had already forced her way through the breach between worlds. Her presence trapped between heaven and earth was creating repercussions between the two realms. The rarely seen Pegasus neighed and flew out of the cloud-covered peak majestically in fear as another figure tumbled from the top. Skidding and bouncing off the edge of the sheer mountainside, armor flying off her body in all directions, Athena hit bottom with her cape wrapped around her neck and her sword bent.

"Awww," Ares didn't move to help as Hercules lifted her up. "Where's your stragedies and warfare now, sis?" She threw her ruined sword at him in disgusted anger.

"What's happening?" Xena asked.

"Everything!" Athena gasped. "Apollo and Artemis attacked first. They're mortals now by the way. Aphrodite tried to reason with her, you know, thinking they were friends or something. She's bound to Tartarus with the connections between Olympus and Hades shut off. Poseidon and Hades are bound in their realms too. Father's up there at it alone trying to hold her off!!" Athena paused, looked briefly to Xena then back to Hercules. "Hercules, to defeat her, I might have to call upon the other pantheons of Earth for help and pull in all of father's markers. She's devastating Olympus!"

"I'm willing to do it!" Ares held his hand up. "Montu owes me a big favor and Tyr loves taking down giants. Nergal, however, doesn't take requests…" He named off a few war-gods from Egypt, Germany and Sumeria. They were all former cohorts in war and conflict, and they all had varying opinions on each other's talents and egos. Xena tuned away realizing how far this far was going. They were planning the complete destruction of someone she considered her sister! Hercules realized her heart-breaking passion for Gabrielle and sighed a tone of regret to share in her depressed compassion. There was a sigh of defeat as they searched for ideas. Hercules noticed the engraving of Medusa on Athena's aegis and had a thought. He remembered something one of famous ancestors one remarked. A Titan against a Titan...

"What ever happened to that?" He enquired of the image.

"It's in the tombs beneath Olympus."

"Show me!" Hercules rushed into the battle. "Xena, Iolaus, keep her busy!!"

"Right!" Xena pulled her sword and looked around for Ares as she took a flying leap for Pegasus grazing near her. Landing on the majestic creature's back, she spurred him on and coaxed him further up into the breech as Bellerophon had done decades ago. Flitting through the clouds, she was a lot less successful than that mad king as she looked down on Olympus hidden in the clouds and it's broken gates, arches and ruined halls and saw Gabrielle's gigantic form standing high above her and storming the heavens. Streaks of lightning bounced off her as she reached down to the ramparts beneath her and lifted the annoying Discord up on one leg, dangled her above her mouth and dropped her into her gullet. The psychotically screaming goddess was still heard passing through her throat before her voice vanished all together.

"Titanson!!" Gabrielle roared as she towered over the structures she was trying to conquer. "Where are you?!! Show yourself!!"

Xena's battle cry sounded above her as Ares and Athena reappeared with Iolaus at the ramparts of the devastated paradise. He watched them firing a unison of lightning bolts and flaming arrows at her to no avail as Xena still came in closer. She placed the frightened winged-horse directly in her friend's line of vision and stared into her immense green eyes.

"Gabrielle!" Xena implored her. "If any shred of you still exists in there, let me know!! Please don't make me kill you!!!"

Gabrielle opened her mouth and hissed at her. Her breath ignited into flame as Pegasus buckled and inadvertently knocked Xena off his back. Bouncing off a ledge, the warrior princess landed in Ares' arms as Zeus appeared and covered their retreat with mystical lightning bolts and cyclones projecting from his hands. Out the corner of his eyes, he watched as Hercules gripped the same sack that had once his been his great-grandfather's cloak. History was repeating itself as he climbed up a broken wall to the roof to be seen clearly. Athena watched and warned the rest as her young brother proved why he was a champion for gods and men and reached in the red cloak for its contents.

"Gabrielle!!!" Hercules reached in and felt the still soft limp snakes on Medusa's head. He lifted the gruesome trophy up as the long dead goddess's head opened its eyes and glared at the possessed Titaness. The snakes twinged with life for a brief time as their mistress's gaze once more invoked her unholy power.

"No!!!!!!!!!!!!" Gabrielle might have known what it was, but not Alyssia. Her eyes froze as her mind and spirit felt heavy and foreign. She looked upon her skin was already turning gray and hardening as it turned to stone. She tried to fight it off as she attempted to conjure more energy, but she could feel herself cracking already as she lost her bearings. Her head was turning to stone, and her body was cracking and crumbling. A bit dazed as her mind shut off into permanent sleep, she grit her teeth and formed the face that would be trapped on her for eternity. Her immobile arm was solid rock and slightly cracked as she tried to turn. Her body fell back trapped in that movement as one large statue becoming more than a thousand years old. The ground quaked with the sound of thunder as Xena watched in shock realizing she lost her best friend. Her heart stopped, her breath froze in her lungs and her eyes widened in shock. Suddenly, the world was changed on her…

"Discord!!" Ares jumped down the cliff where the petrified giantess had fallen. Landing on her stone abdomen, he cracked the surface and reached in through layers of soft mud-like goop and stony liquid and pulled out Discord from the partially soft stomach. She was covered in mud and liquid rock.

"Did we win?" She peeled the stuff from her eyes.

"Yeah…"

"You saved me?"

"Sure." Ares admitted. "You're my favorite target."

"Xena." Hercules briefly returned the Gorgon's head to Athena in his great-grandfather's cloak as he looked around for her. He slid down the slope to the lower cliff beneath Olympus as the warrior goddess stared at the massive stony effigy of her best friend. "I'm sorry, she was..."

"It was the only thing you could do." Xena watched the cracks still splitting through the huge statue's head and sighed. She never knew how much Gabrielle meant to her till now. She was much more than her best friend; she was practically her sister. Trying to adjust to the fact that she was gone, she started to turn her back as she heard a voice echoing out from the statue.

"Someone get me out of here!!"

Everyone watched as Xena spun round. A hand broke out of one of the eyes cracking and caving into the hollow head. A familiar face looked out of the small hole as Xena broke the opening and made it wider. Hercules watched perplexed and Ares scowled disinterested as Xena reached in and pulled Gabrielle out of the great stone head. She was naked, shaken and covered in a grainy sandy substance. Xena hugged her tightly as they realized how close they came to losing each other. Her best friend was alive and confused. Barely aware of what had happened, the petite bard gasped for air and fought for her breath with her head turning up to the sky. Last thing she recalled was running into that cemetery and then she found herself inside the head of that giant statue.

"Is it daylight already!!" Gabrielle asked out loud as Xena cried for joy to be holding her once more.


	10. Chapter 10

PART 10

Back in Tricca, Xena emerged from the local inn where Gabrielle was resting peacefully. The wife of the innkeeper had dressed her wounds and was feeding her. Xena beamed happily now and looked up at Hercules, Iolaus, Autolycus, Salmoneus and Joxer lined up outside waiting for news to see if the non-possessed Gabrielle was still a god, a titan or possibly even faking her normalcy. None of them wanted to live through this ordeal again.

"How is she?" Hercules asked.

"Tired, hungry," Xena slowly peered back through the doorway. "She doesn't remember much, but she does have bits and pieces, but she thinks they were a dream."

"Is she a god?" Joxer asked.

"I don't think so." Xena wandered over to Argo. "I scratched her arm to make sure and she bled."

"Faking?" Autolycus asked.

"She knows her family lives in Poteideia and where we first met." Xena folded her arms. "Unless you told her that stuff."

"What I want to know is," Iolaus stood up. "How? How did she survive not getting turned into stone? I mean, Discord was even inside her, but technically, all through this, Alyssia and Gabrielle were one and the same."

"Maybe becoming a Titan separated the two." Hercules theorized as he leaned his back against the outer wall of the inn. " I mean, despite the possession, Gabrielle had to have been fighting for dominance against herself and maybe even unconsciously she tapped into Alyssia's godhood. Or maybe that's just the way it is. Why examine it?"

"I don't know." Joxer posed like Hercules and compared himself to the hero's might. "But I wish Gabrielle could have kept some of that power. I thought she was sort of... magnificent. Almost fifty feet tall, and all that power... It sort of makes me a little excited!" Salmoneus and Autolycus cringed at his dirty little fantasy and pushed him back disgustedly into the thorn bushes.

"Pervert!!" Salmoneus yelled at him.

"What I'm worried about..." Iolaus looked at Xena and the others. "Is there anything still left in Antequeria we need to be worried about?"

"I don't think we need to worry bout it." Hercules spoke up. "The ruins were devastated when Gabrielle clawed to the surface. I doubt any of it still exists."

Far to the north and almost a mile underground, the further collapsed rooms of the ancient city seemed to gasp a bit of relief. The ghosts relaxed and the statues returned to normal. A few treasure-strewn chambers were intact and one such forgotten temple had remained unscathed. One jewel-incrusted serpent entwined around an altar that had been further buried by the giant's escape. Its diamond eyes blinked, its tongue tasted the air and it curled up a bit more as it waited for another chance...

END


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